Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Personal Views

Childhood: a public health issue

BMJ 1999; 319 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.319.7225.1653 (Published 18 December 1999) Cite this as: BMJ 1999;319:1653

Rapid Response:

Childhood as a public health issue

By far the most important public health issue worldwide is Childhood.
In my part of the world children of the poor suffer from the immediate and
long term effects on their development of mainly food deprivation. As you
have described in this brief but most thoughtful article, in your part of
the world, for the young poverty has deeper implications. Emotional
deprivation, severe and sustained, compounds the lack of material
impoverishment. What must be done?

Competing interests: No competing interests

05 January 2000
Lalitha D'Souza
Senior Research Officer
Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT), Mumbai, India